sprawl – Blueprint Americahttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica
A spotlight on America’s decaying and neglected infrastructure.Wed, 11 Nov 2015 16:37:51 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Profiles from the Recession: [VIDEO] Stretched To The Limits: Still driving to qualify after the housing crisishttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/video-stretched-to-the-limits-still-driving-to-qualify-after-the-housing-crisis/1138/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/video-stretched-to-the-limits-still-driving-to-qualify-after-the-housing-crisis/1138/#disqus_threadFri, 22 Oct 2010 21:55:04 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/?p=1138The post Profiles from the Recession: [VIDEO] Stretched To The Limits: Still driving to qualify after the housing crisis appeared first on Blueprint America.
]]>As they post-mortem the housing crisis, policy makers are increasingly putting transportation costs under the microscope. Blueprint America visits the car -dependent suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, to learn about how transportation costs are making it harder for families to hold on to the American Dream.
(View full post to see video)

Producer Fae Moore, editor David Kreger and special correspondent John Larson for Blueprint America

JOHN LARSON:
Laura Grosso lives with her husband Tony and their two sons in Queen Creek, Arizona, a suburb on the outer fringes of Phoenix. They bought this three bedroom in 2006. Even though it was far from work and family, it was just what they were looking for

LAURA GROSSO:
We wanted Dominic and Franco to be happy here, and to have a nice childhood, like how we grew up. Because we grew up in the mid-west, where it was open and everyone had grass. So, this is kind of a little piece of how we wanted it to be for them.

JOHN LARSON:
Like millions of other young American families who bought during the last housing boom, the Grossos decided to trade more time behind the wheel for an opportunity to live their American dream.

LAURE GROSSO:
We understood that it was really far out, but we thought, well, this is– we can afford this house, it’s big enough for us. And, here we go, we like the area.

JOHN LARSON:
You might think this is a story about how the Grossos are coping with a looming foreclosure. But it’s not.

It’s about how families hit hard by the housing crisis are also getting slammed by rising transportation costs.

When they signed on the dotted line, the Grossos never thought about what they would spend for gas, insurance and car payments …but last spring, when the transmission on their second car died, the cost became all too clear. They had already taken paycuts and they could not afford a new car.

With no mass transit, the only option for both Grossos to get to work? They go together.

They rouse the babies and they’re out the door before sun up.

First stop: 25 minutes to Mesa, to unload the boys at grandma’s house

20 minutes later, they reach Scottsdale, where Laura lets Tony off in time for his six AM shift as a security guard in a hospital.

It’s another 15 minutes to Tempe, where Laura works in administration at Arizona State University. After a full day’s work, they’ll do the whole thing in reverse in the afternoon…round trip that’s about 120 miles a day.

And how many hours you figure?

TONY GROSSO:
Well, it’s at least about two and a half, two hours. Depending on traffic and stuff.

JOHN LARSON:
It sounds exhausting.

TONY GROSSO:
We don’t think about it. We do it.

JOHN LARSON:
There’s no question driving is a way of life for most of the 4 million people who call metro Phoenix home.

It’s hard to grasp just how spread out the region is. Phoenix and the surrounding valley cover over 2,000 square miles.

The population grew by more than 1 million people in the past decade alone. A sea of new homes went up almost overnight. When gas prices spiked between 2007 and 2008, people were suddenly paying twice as much to get around…..and that’s exactly when foreclosures peaked in neighborhoods like Queen Creek.

LAURA GROSSO:
It was a ghost town. The streets as you go down the street, it was just for sale signs, the houses were vacant…

JOHN LARSON:
Studies show this pattern – the farther out, the more foreclosures– held true in most major American sprawl towns…

As they post-mortem the housing crisis, policy makers are increasingly putting transportation costs under the microscope. Shaun Donovan is the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

SHAUN DONOVAN:
In some ways the foreclosure crisis has been a wakeup call on that front. What it said to folks is, “Hey, wait a second. Look at the houses that are on the periphery of these metropolitan areas. Those are the ones that have actually lost the most value.

The places that have retained the most value, where prices have dropped the least, are places that have access to transportation.”

JOHN LARSON:
It wasn’t just the marketplace that created sprawl, says Donovan.

ARCHIVAL FILM NARRATION:
This is the American dream of freedom on wheels….

JOHN LARSON:
The federal government has been in the business of promoting car dependent development for a long time… ever since President Eisenhower signed the Federal Aid Highway Act back in 1956.

Over the decades Washington spent trillions building highways, and subsidizing the suburban housing industry. As long as gas was cheap and there was room to grow it seemed to work. But today the American dream is gridlocked, literally. Clogged roads pollute the air, gas prices are high, and many people are spending more time on the road than with their families.

SHAUN DONOVAN:
The average family in America today spends 52 percent of their income on housing and transportation combined. The single largest costs in the average American family’s budget.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
We can no longer afford to sit still. What we need is a smart system of infrastructure equal to the needs of the 21st century…

JOHN LARSON:
The Obama Administration is trying to sell Congress and the public on a new blueprint. One that changes the way we design communities and get around in them.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:
A system that cuts congestion and ups productivity.

DONOVAN
What we’re trying to do is provide more choice. And by the way, that’s what I hear when I’m out in communities every day – we want more choices. “Look, I’m not going to get rid of my car,” is what I hear. “It’s not that I’m going to not have a car. It’s that I don’t want always have to get in my car. I want to be able to get on my bicycle sometimes. I want to be able to walk. I want to have transportation choices.”

JOHN LARSON:
Providing more affordable choices means first and foremost promoting public transportation, something car loving Arizonans have historically resisted.

Until the Phoenix light rail. The controversial 1.4 billion dollar light rail opened in 2008 after a narrow margin of local voters approved a half cent sales tax and Washington agreed to pay for 40 percent of the construction costs.

So far ridership has more than exceeded expectations. About 33,000 people a day, many of them students, ride the 20 mile rail which connects downtown to the university neighborhoods of Tempe and Mesa.

Right now the rail only reaches a small portion of the region, but there are plans to extend it 57 miles out into the valley.

Emily Talen is a professor of urban planning at Arizona State.

EMILY TALEN
The light rail has a certain sexiness to it that can really get people excited and energized.

It’s got to be seen as one step in an evolution of turning this ship around, this sprawling, unsustainable, place into a different kind of community.

JOHN LARSON:
The outlines of this community are starting to emerge. In the past five years developers have poured $5 billion worth of private investment into residential and commercial construction along the light rail

Most local and state politicians support plans to expand the system, but with the economy on life support few are willing to raise taxes to do so. Which means new trains will not be heading to the outskirts any time soon.

And for some developers on the outskirts, that’s just fine.

DENNIS WEBB:
They can get this 4,000 square foot house for $236,000.

JOHN LARSON:
Dennis Webb is the vice president of operations for Fulton Homes, one of Arizona’s largest home builders. Just a few miles down the road from where thousands of foreclosed houses sit empty, Fulton Homes is building brand new ones. Once the economy comes back, he says, so will the market for the exurban lifestyle that he’s selling.

DENNIS WEBB:
People want to live in a safe, family environment, where they can have their kids right nearby, have a pool, have a backyard and barbecue and things like that. That’s the way they want to live.

JOHN LARSON:
I took a little drive around the development and I was looking for the light rail station. Now where–

DENNIS WEBB:
Keep looking!

JOHN LARSON:
Webb doesn’t see people giving up their cars any time soon. And government efforts to fight sprawl rub him the wrong way.

DENNIS WEBB:
It’s the West, it’s the frontier. I think the government has very little– should have very little voice in dictating where people want to live.

JOHN LARSON:
Meanwhile, the Grossos just keep on driving. They aren’t expecting trains to help them out of their financial difficulties any time soon….they’re just trying to hold onto what they’ve got.

JOHN LARSON:
What would be the worst possible thing that could happen now.

TONY GROSSO:
Well, the car thing, I think, I mean, that’s… that car is our lifeline right now. So, everything we do revolves around that car. So, if that goes, we do.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/video-stretched-to-the-limits-still-driving-to-qualify-after-the-housing-crisis/1138/feed/3Profiles from the Recession: [MAP] Housing + Transportation Affordability Indexhttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/map-housing-transportation-affordability-index/1132/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/map-housing-transportation-affordability-index/1132/#disqus_threadThu, 21 Oct 2010 21:42:43 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/?p=1132The post Profiles from the Recession: [MAP] Housing + Transportation Affordability Index appeared first on Blueprint America.
]]>If there’s a positive from the recession, it’s been the fact that U.S. households are lowering their debts and getting their finances back in order.

What hasn’t changed is that the majority of a family’s income still goes to covering housing costs. But the affordability of where you live doesn’t always equal the amount you pay in rent or on your mortgage — it’s often times higher. The problem is that when you buy a house, for example, an hour from where you work, the true cost of housing has to include the cost of commuting — after all, that’s the total cost of where you live. It’s the consequence of, “Drive until you qualify.”

According to the Center for Neighborhood Technology, a sustainable communities think tank, under the traditional definition of housing affordability (30 percent or less of household income spent on housing), seven out of 10 U.S. communities are considered “affordable.” Not too bad.

So when the definition of affordability includes both housing and transportation costs, the number of “affordable” communities in almost all metro regions of the country decreases significantly to 40 percent.

STRETCHED TO THE LIMITS

Look no further than the American Southwest: If you live in the greater Phoenix–Mesa, Arizona, area, you’re probably spending more than 45 percent of your income on housing and transportation. In most parts, at least 20 percent of your monthly income is going to cover filling up your gas tank alone.

]]>http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/map-housing-transportation-affordability-index/1132/feed/0Profiles from the Recession: [VIDEO] HUD Secretary Donovan: In recession, housing + transportation costs add uphttp://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/video-hud-secretary-donovan-in-recession-housing-transportation-costs-add-up/1110/
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/reports/profiles-from-the-recession/video-hud-secretary-donovan-in-recession-housing-transportation-costs-add-up/1110/#disqus_threadTue, 28 Sep 2010 21:44:22 +0000http://www.pbs.org/wnet/blueprintamerica/?p=1110The post Profiles from the Recession: [VIDEO] HUD Secretary Donovan: In recession, housing + transportation costs add up appeared first on Blueprint America.
]]>The average family in America today spends 52 percent of its income on housing and transportation costs, according to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan. Together, they make up the greatest portion of the average American family’s budget.

Now, those spiraling costs have set off a sea change in Washington. After years of working independently from each other, the federal housing and transportation departments — along with the Environmental Protection Agency and others — are working together in an effort to better address the cost of getting to, and from, our homes. In this exclusive interview, Donovan discusses how the federal government is reshaping policy to link housing and transportation together.

To more accurately measure those costs, the Center for Neighborhood Technology group recently released the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, which appraises the true cost of housing based on its location, by examining the transportation costs associated with place.

The national credit crisis is hitting the housing market again, this time resulting in bankruptcy – for builders. The New York Times reports that across the county, small home builders are going into bankruptcy as the banks providing their construction loans foreclose on their developments. Home sales are down nationwide, and builders have been dramatically reducing the prices of new homes in efforts to sell them. Land deals that builders once intended to turn into master-planned communities, particularly in places like Arizona, have failed as the demand for homes has dropped-off. This reduction in home sales has depreciated the worth of assets many builders use as collateral for their bank loans. Banks, in turn, have demanded more collateral to continue backing the loans. When builders cannot come up with the additional money, the banks foreclose on the developments.

According the Mary Utley, Public Information Officer for the Arizona Department of Real Estate, there is no timetable for how long the Chandler, AZ development mentioned in the Times article will remain half-built and vacant. “Since (the builder) has been foreclosed on, the banks or the lending institution will have to sell the homes or the property to another developer. There’s no law that says how quickly the bank has to sell those properties. I know that some of the local non-profits have worked with those lending institutions to see that those properties don’t become blighted, or to make those properties into affordable housing units. But it’s now totally in the hands of the lending institutions.”